Trouble In Mudbug

by Jana DeLeon

  Her knee was throbbing now, and Maryse could feel a tiny trickle of blood down the front of her leg. Her aching head would probably never be the same. As soon as she rounded the bayou out of view of Helena’s house, she’d stop and assess the damage. She slowed a bit, so as not to look suspicious, and twisted on the bench to look back at Helena’s house. The police were just pulling into the driveway, and she breathed a sigh of relief that she’d be well out of their line of sight before they got out of their cars.

  She turned back around and almost panicked when she realized she was headed directly toward an anchored boat.

  She threw the throttle in reverse and the engine whined in protest. The boat jerked one direction, then another, and as every muscle in her body strained to hold her inside the bouncing vehicle, Maryse knew she was going to pay for this tomorrow.

  Miraculously, the boat stopped just inches from the other vessel. Maryse sank down on the bench, trying to catch her breath.

  “Quite a stop you made there,” a voice sounded from the other boat. “Do you do everything as fast as you drive a boat?”

  That voice was too familiar and wasn’t one she wanted to hear. She raised her head a tiny bit and saw the smiling face of Luc LeJeune. Just what she needed—an opportunity for Luc to file a reckless endangerment charge against her with his uncle. This day just kept getting better.

  “Hi, Luc.” She tried to force her voice to normal. “I was having a bit of engine trouble. I thought I might have a little trash collected down there. Figured I’d blow it out.”

  Luc looked at her, still smiling, not believing a word of it. “Uh huh. Hey, what’s that noise around the bayou? It sounds like an alarm? Cop cars have been racing along the highway to get here.”

  Maryse looked behind her even though she knew she couldn’t see around the bend of the bayou to Helena’s house. It bought her a moment, and in that moment, she was hoping to come up with a better answer than “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t hear anything.” So much for the moment.

  Luc studied her, a curious expression on his face. “Really? That’s odd, because the sirens and everything are pretty loud. Of course, if you were working on your engine, you might not have heard it over the motor.” He gave her another smile that clearly said, “you’re full of shit and up to something and I know it.” “What happened to your knee?”

  Maryse looked down at her leg, just realizing that she’d been massaging the top of her kneecap. A patch of red was seeping through her jeans, and given that it was growing in size, she probably couldn’t pass it off as an old stain.

  “I banged it on the bench when I was working on the engine. I didn’t even notice it was bleeding. Must have a sharp edge somewhere. I’ll get the metal grinder after it tomorrow.”

  “After the bench or you knee?” Luc asked, clearly amused.

  Maryse sighed. “The bench. Look, I need to get going. I have a lot of things to do tonight.”

  Luc waved one hand across the bayou, as if to say “What’s stopping you?”

  “I’ll see you at the office tomorrow,” he said as she backed her boat away from his.

  Managing a weak smile, she turned the boat and headed down the bayou toward the station. She was halfway there when she realized she’d locked Helena inside her own house, and she hadn’t gotten the promised information on Hank.

  Damn it! Things were out of control, and she had to get a grip on them fast or she was going to end up costing herself everything. Breaking and entering? What had she been thinking? All that drama for a fractured kneecap and a reinjury to her throbbing head, and she still hadn’t gotten what she’d gone in for, which was information on Hank.

  She’d hoped after the will reading that the situation with Helena would resolve itself and she could go back to her regular life, minus Helena Henry, of course. But it looked like things were far more dire than she’d initially thought, and her options were limited.

  What she needed was professional advice, and the only two people she could think of to give it were her priest and Sabine. One of them had to know of a way to help Helena pass or cross or whatever it was that she needed to do.

  And if anyone would know how to make that happen, it would probably be Sabine.

  Luc watched as Maryse headed up the bayou in her boat, wondering what in the world was going on with that woman. He’d stepped right in the middle of something strange and for the life of him couldn’t figure out what.

  He’d followed after she left the office, the GPS he’d installed on her boat made finding her among the hundreds of bayous an easy task. But when he’d initially arrived at the location the equipment had specified, he wondered if there had been a malfunction. Her boat was nowhere in sight, even though the tiny gray monitor clearly showed a blinking red light not fifty yards in front of him.

  Then the alarm sirens had gone off, and seconds later, he’d spotted Maryse running along a group of dense hedges, away from the house with the sounding alarm. He glanced down at the bank and saw a tiny tip of her boat peeking out from the cattails, suddenly realizing why she’d shown on the equipment but not to the bare eye.

  She’d made a leap into her boat from the bank that Indiana Jones would have been proud of, and it probably explained the injury to her knee, but it didn’t explain why a seemingly rational woman would break into a house in broad daylight. Before she could catch him spying, he’d hustled around the corner and anchored directly in her flight path.

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and pressed in a number. His buddy and fellow agent answered almost immediately.

  “LeJeune here. Brian, I need you to check on something for me.”

  “Go ahead,” Brian said.

  “There’s a house in downtown Mudbug along the bayou where an alarm just went off. The police responded, so I know the alarm system is linked to an outside provider. I need to know who owns that house.”

  Luc heard tapping and knew Brian was working his magic on the computer. It took less than a minute to get the answer.

  “The house belongs to a Helena Henry,” Brian said. “You want me to pursue anything further?”

  “No,” Luc said. “That’s it for now. Thanks.” He flipped the phone shut and shoved it in his pocket.

  Maryse had just broken into her dead mother-in-law’s house. He was certain. And even though it probably had nothing to do with his case, he couldn’t help wondering what the woman had gotten into. The information on Maryse from the DEQ research department didn’t allude to anything remotely dangerous or illegal. Truth be told, on paper she was probably the most boring human being he’d ever read about. In person, well, in person obviously things were a bit different.

  Luc smiled. He couldn’t wait to find out why.

  Fifteen minutes after she’d risked a criminal record, Maryse docked her boat and left the office before Luc could show up and start in with any more embarrassing questions. It was fast approaching supper time, and since she’d completely forgotten lunch, Maryse was on the verge of starving. She had thirty minutes to snag a clean pair of jeans and make the drive into Mudbug. Sabine would just be closing up shop for the day, so the two of them could grab some burgers, and Maryse could fill Sabine in on her ridiculous day.

  She made the drive in twenty minutes flat, which was fast even for her. But then, being haunted tended to create a sense of urgency. As she parked her rental in front of one of the restored historical buildings along Main Street, she spotted Sabine through the plate-glass window of her shop, Read ’em and Reap. She was dressed to the hilt in her psychic getup—a floor-length, midnight-blue robe with stars and moons on it and a matching head wrap with a huge fake sapphire in the center. Her long earrings and dozens of bracelets glinted in the sunlight. With her jet black hair—dyed, of course—and black nails and lipstick, the picture was complete. And completely frightening.

  Maryse smiled for a moment, unable to help herself. From the outside, two
more different people had never been made than she and Sabine, and she was certain that more than a few Mudbug residents wondered how in the world they had ever become such close friends. But then people in Mudbug could sometimes be a little obtuse.

  Those two poor little girls with no mothers. Maryse could still remember overhearing her first-grade teacher saying that to the principal their first day of school. They were different from the other kids and knew it. And Sabine didn’t even have a father, just an aging aunt who had taken her in but couldn’t tell her much if anything about her parents.

  Now they were both short two parents. Sabine’s parents from a car accident when Sabine was still a baby, and Maryse’s parents lost to cancer.

  Maryse frowned and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. She hated being pitied and had felt the difference in the attitudes of the teachers and other kids even then. As much as Maryse missed her parents, and Sabine wanted to know something about her own, neither of them wanted the pity of people who would never understand. Pity was for those who couldn’t do anything about it. She and Sabine had spent their lives trying to fill those gaps, and damn it, one day the holes their parents left were going to be filled.

  Sabine’s tarot cards were fanned out before a distraught, middle-aged, overweight woman with more jewelry than Sabine and hair that was entirely too big. There was a shiny-new, white Cadillac Deville parked in front of Sabine’s building, so Maryse figured she better wait a minute until Sabine delivered the happy news to whatever rich idiot was currently seeking her “professional” advice.

  Immediately, Maryse chastised herself for judging others and their beliefs. She’d always been the typical scientist, not believing in anything she couldn’t put her hands on, and now she had a ghost stalking her. It had taken her years to buy into the unnatural ability of Raissa, Sabine’s mentor, but the other psychic had been right about so many things that even Maryse had to admit Raissa had talents that couldn’t be explained. God had been the only exception to her self-imposed rule of proof, and she still wondered whether if she hadn’t been raised in the church she would have questioned His existence as well.

  And despite all that, here she was—smack in the middle of a paranormal nightmare. She was about to tell her best friend, who believed in the existence of damned near anything, that Helena Henry was haunting her. For Sabine, who’d been trying to convince her of the supernatural since the first grade, this moment would be beyond value—just like one of those stupid commercials.

  One lost tarot reading for closing the shop early—$15.

  Three glasses of wine and a burger at Johnny’s—$20.

  Hearing your best friend, aka The Disbeliever, say she’s

  being haunted by a ghost—Priceless.

  She shook her head and sighed, feeling so far out of her element it wasn’t even funny. About that time, Cadillac Woman broke into smiles, and Maryse figured Sabine had wrapped up the good news. She hopped out of her rental and started across the street before she could change her mind.

  Chapter Six

  As Maryse stepped inside Read ’em and Reap, Sabine looked up in obvious surprise.

  “Maryse, is everything all right? What in the world happened to your head?” Sabine jumped up from her chair and rushed over to inspect Maryse’s forehead.

  “I wrecked my truck this morning.” She held up a hand to stop the barrage that was about to ensue. “I’ve already been to the doctor, and I’m fine. It’s just a bump and a hellacious headache. A couple of uneventful days and I should be good as new.” Of course, she had a ghost of a chance at stringing together a couple of uneventful days. Literally.

  Sabine stared at her for a moment, then narrowed her eyes. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Of course something’s wrong. This whole day was wrong.”

  Sabine shook her head. “I know that look.”

  “What look?” Maryse was already having second thoughts about telling Sabine about Helena. What if Sabine thought she was crazy? What if she was crazy?

  “That ‘I don’t want to discuss it’ look that you always get when you need help and don’t want to ask.” Sabine paused for a moment. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but did Hank show up for the reading?”

  Maryse sighed. “I should have known I couldn’t hide anything from you. But I don’t want to talk here. I can’t drink taking the pain medication, but I was thinking a burger and a painkiller might loosen me up enough for the subject I need to cover.”

  Sabine nodded. “Let me lock up and shed the robes. I’ll meet you at Johnny’s in a few.” She grabbed a set of keys off her desk. “Get the corner table.”

  “Sure.” Maryse headed out of the shop and into the hot, humid Louisiana evening. The sun was still beating down on the concrete, heat vapors rising from the street. The smell of boiled crawfish from Carolyn’s Cajun Kitchen down the block filled the air and made her remember that it had been forever since breakfast.

  She hesitated for a moment as she crossed the street to Johnny’s bar, wondering again if she was making the right decision. If she told Sabine about Helena’s ghost, she was leaving herself wide open for lectures on all kinds of unexplained phenomena—Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs. She wasn’t sure she was ready for a lifetime of hassle.

  She bit her lower lip and cast a nervous glance back at Read ’em and Reap. On the flip side, there was the one huge advantage of letting her friend in on it—Sabine knew darn near everything about the supernatural, and anything she didn’t know, she could find out. If anyone could make Helena go away, it would be Sabine. And getting rid of Helena was the number one priority, even if it meant going to near-death-experience meetings or looking at those blurred photos of God-knows-what that Sabine was always trying to push off on her as real.

  Seeing no better alternative, she pushed open the door and entered the bar. A couple of fishermen sat at the old driftwood bar and waved a hand in acknowledgment when she walked in. Other than that, the place was empty. She made her way to the table in a dim corner, far from the bar, and took a seat. The owner and chief bartender, appropriately named Johnny, shuffled over to her a minute or so later.

  “Sorry to hear about your mother-in-law,” he said, brushing aside a stray strand of thinning, silver hair from his forehead.

  “Really?” Maryse stared at him.

  Johnny fidgeted for a moment, then gave her a grin. “Well, hell no, actually, but ‘sorry’ sounds a lot more polite. Did Hank show up for the funeral?”

  “Not a chance. I figure he won’t come around until he gets the money to pay off the local law enforcement.”

  Johnny nodded. “Sounds about right. I swear to God, that has got to be the most useless human being ever produced.” He gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, I know you married him and all.”

  She waved one hand in dismissal. “You haven’t offended me. I was young and stupid. I don’t blame myself for being taken in by Hank Henry. I’m certainly not the only one who was.”

  “That’s for sure. I think he owed damned near everyone in town before he skipped out.”

  No shit. “Yeah, that’s what I hear.” It was all she could say about the situation without exploding.

  “Well, what’re you drinkin’?” Fortunately, Johnny saved her from dwelling on all Hank’s debts.

  “Could I get a club soda and a glass of white zin for Sabine? She’ll be here in a minute.”

  Johnny nodded and clasped her shoulder with one hand. “You let me know if you need anything, okay? I promised your daddy I’d look after you, and I intend to keep that promise.” He gave her a grin. “Can’t have the old bastard coming back to haunt me, can I?”

  Maryse gave him a weak smile. “Guess not,” she managed as Johnny shuffled back to the bar to get the drinks.

  Given a choice between Helena Henry and her dad, she’d have taken the “old bastard” any day. He’d been as hard as every other commercial fisherman in Mudbug and hadn’t given an inch on anything, but at least he�
��d been honest and fair.

  It couldn’t have been easy on him, raising a girl on his own after her mother died, but he’d done the best he could, and she didn’t think she’d turned out too bad. Except for the major slip of marrying Hank, she had a pretty good track record. And let’s face it, if her dad hadn’t come back from the dead to stop that wedding, she was pretty sure he wasn’t ever returning.

  Clenching her fists in frustration, she mentally cursed Hank Henry for about the hundredth time that day. If he hadn’t got a hold of her at the absolute lowest point in her life—just after her dad had passed—would she have fallen for his act?